Part of the Job Description
by VBreadergirl123
Summary: Selflessness is basically part of the Avenger's job description. So what happens when six people hell-bent on protecting one another are thrown into a game where only five come out and they have to decide who those five are? Oneshot.


**So I really have no idea where this came from. It's definitely pretty dark, and I ajskdlf;dsa I just don't know how I came up with this. All I know is that all of the Avengers are these incredibly selfless people, and I thought, what would happen if all of their lives were at risk and they were all just trying to save each other and not themselves and I just somehow thought of this and its really twisted but I just needed to write it.**

**And I KNOW I should be working on We Can't Just Walk Away (check that out if you haven't read it yet, by the way), but I just had to get this out of my head.**

**I still don't own the Avengers.**

* * *

Clint shook his head and groaned his way back into consciousness. Realizing that a) he was not in the air vents at Stark Tower, b) he was not lying on the ground after a battle, and c) he was not waking up in a hospital bed, Clint began to worry about his current whereabouts. He opened his eyes to darkness, and, waiting for his eyes to adjust, tried to stretch. Only to find his arms and legs restrained in a metal chair. Predictably, his first thought was not _where am I?_ but instead, _oh god, not again._ As he gradually began to be able to see again, he found that he was sitting in one of six chairs bolted to the ground in a circle, and that the rest of his team was sitting in all the other chairs in various states of consciousness. Thor was awake and trying in vain to rip the restraints off of the chair. Steve was just waking up. Bruce was still out, as was Tony, but Tony's position was much more amusing—his head was lolled over to one side and he appeared to be drooling. Thankfully, he was not snoring. And finally, Natasha was as awake as he was, trying to get their bearings in the room and unsuccessfully trying to reach a lock pick in her boot.

From what Clint could tell in the darkness, besides them all sitting in a circle, they appeared to be lining the outside of a giant wheel-looking thing with a pointer on one side. They were equally spaced apart, and in the center of the wheel there seemed to be some sort of gun.

_Great_.

"...mrpshfdshmrph didn't eat the rubber duck!" Tony awoke with a shout, that in turn finished waking up Bruce. "What the hell, this is NOT where I went to sleep!"

Clint looked around apprehensively, knowing that, since now they were all awake, there was a chance that something might happen and their captor had just been waiting for them all to wake up. Nothing happened. Until Tony's and Bruce's eyes adjusted to the darkness.

Torches of red-orange flame lit up one by one around the room, illuminating it in its entirety. The room was round, walls made of stone. In fact, there was nothing spectacular in the room besides the wheel in the center. Clint still wondered about the significance of the wheel.

"Soo," Tony drawled, "is anyone going to tell us why we are all locked around a giant spinner?"

Now that Tony mentioned it, everyone agreed—it _did_ look like a spinner from a board game. A very _large_board game.

"Welcome, Avengers," a voiced boomed through the cavern, shaking dust down from the ceilings. "Tony Stark, the genius. Steve Rogers, the man out of time. Thor Odinson, the god from another world. Bruce Banner, the man with two identities. Clint Barton, the archer. And Natasha Romanoff, the assassin. Welcome to my humble abode. I hope you are seated comfortably?" Clint could practically _hear_ the humor in the man's voice.

"If you don't mind, we'd like to know who were speaking to," Steve started, "and—"

"And, you know, SEE YOU!" shouted Tony.

"You don't need to see me for our little game. And, as for my name, you don't need that either. However, if you need to call me something, you may call me your executioner."

"Hmm, yeah, not liking that idea?" said Tony. "I kind of like the name Rodrigo, or Christopher's nice too. Executioner sounds ominous, and that's not really my thing. What do you think?"

The "executioner" ignored Tony. "As you all can see, I am a fan of playing games. I'm sure you will all enjoy this one. It's quite simple, actually. There are six of you here, and five of you can leave. These chairs you are sitting in, they can sense your pulse. What is going to happen is I will spin this wheel, and when it stops, the arrow will be pointing at someone."

He paused dramatically here, and Clint assumed, along with the rest of them, that whoever was being pointed at would be the one to die.

"That person will take my place as your executioner, as I cannot be there in person," he said gleefully. "The gun in the center of the wheel will slide over to you, and you can take aim at anyone but yourself. Once that person dies, the door over there," a light lit up over a metal door that could obviously not be opened from the inside, "and your restraints will be released, and you will be free to go. Good luck, the game will begin in five minutes."

Once the voice stopped speaking, the Avengers sat there in utter shock. One of them would have to shoot another, shoot to _kill_, and the executioner had designed this game just so they couldn't play the selfless card and shoot themselves. In other words, he _wanted_ to make one of them live with the ultimate guilt.

"So..." Tony started, looking around for help from the rest of them.

"So we just don't shoot!" Natasha exclaimed. "We don't HAVE to kill anyone, we can just wait until someone finds us."

"I like this idea," said Thor. "We can be patient. If SHIELD does not come for us I am sure that Heimdall will notice us trapped and send someone to our aid."

"Oh, I forgot to mention," the voice added, causing a collective groan from the six of them. "After the wheel lands on someone, you will have twenty minutes before the entire cavern collapses, killing all of you."

Clint felt like strangling someone. This so-called "executioner" had left them with zero loopholes, or if he had, then they wouldn't have time to figure them out. He was determined to turn one of them into a murderer.

"I have a sort-of idea," said Steve quietly, "and it's sort of twisted, but we can decide whether or not we will use it or not." He swallowed. "So maybe we should sort of discuss beforehand who's going to... you know, that way it's not really a surprise?"

While everyone felt sick at that idea, they agreed that they'd rather know.

"Okay," Steve began, "well, it is physically impossible to kill Bruce, so shooting him would get us nowhere because these chairs somehow sense a pulse. It is also probably impossible to kill a god with a single bullet, so Thor's out, too."

Down to four.

Tony piped up next. "It is also impossible to kill either Clint or Natasha." When everyone looked at him with confused stares, he elaborated. "Okay, I mean it is _possible_, but it's like a law of the universe that one can't be without the other, and I pity the person who splits them up because the other will make their life a living hell. They both live or none of them live, and we only have one bullet, so I don't suggest shooting one of them. Besides, they'd spend all day arguing about which of them to shoot."

Down to two.

"So that leaves Tony and Steve," Natasha began tentatively.

"No, that leaves me." Tony stated simply.

"What makes you say that?" Steve asked incredulously.

"Because Iron Man is replaceable, Captain America is not. We can easily find someone else to use my suit, but it will be impossible to find another Captain America."

"Tony, you are _not_ replaceable," Clint shouted, "we would not be a team without you."

"But without Steve, we also would not have a leader," Tony said. Everyone was silent.

Down to one. Even though no one would admit it. They felt even more sick than when they decided to discuss what they'd do ahead of time.

"This is ridiculous!" Natasha shouted. "Tony, we're not shooting you. We're not shooting _anyone_. I'd rather all of us go down together than have to shoot one of you, and besides, what if the spinner lands on Tony? It's designed so he can't shoot himself anyway! No one is shooting anyone!"

_Except for me, _everyone thought to themselves.

Suddenly, the flares on the wall began to flicker, and the wheel in the center of the room started spinning. It started fast, so fast that they could all feel the breeze of it on their faces, and anyone with long hair (Thor and Natasha) had their hair blown into their face. Eventually, it began to slow down.

Round and round and round it spun, until finally it landed on...

Tony.

The gun slid across the arrow and Tony's hands were unlocked, giving him control of the gun. The executioner's voice came over the cavern.

"Your twenty minutes start now."

"What the hell do you want me to do?" Tony screamed at the invisible voice. "I am NOT killing a single one of these people."

"Man of Iron—" Thor began.

"NO! I am not shooting a single one of you! Let me think," Tony said. Normally, he would have started pacing back and forth, but seeing as his legs were still locked to the chair, he had to remain relatively motionless.

And they were all thinking. There _had_ to be a way out of this, this could not be a death trap.

After about fifteen minutes of trying to exhaust every possible option, Tony sighed. "As I see it, we have two options. Or, _I_ have two options that I'd be willing to go through with. Bruce, do you know, is anything keeping you from hulking out on us to get out of that chair."

"Tony, I feel like if I had been able to, I would have done it when you woke me up and I found myself strapped down in this chair. Trust me, I've wanted to 'hulk' since I heard that stupid voice tell us the rules."

Tony swore. "Then there's only one thing I'd be willing to do. Oh executioner!"

"You have five minutes."

"You said that this door would open once one of us was dead, right? So I have to shoot someone other than myself?"

"That is correct."

"What if they died a different way? Would it still count?" Tony asked, the evident desperation in his voice scaring the five others.

After a brief hesitation, the voice responded. "Yes, it would still work. Once one of you is dead, the doors will open and you can go free, I guarantee it."

"Perfect."

And five hearts dropped into their stomachs when they watched in horror as _click, twist, snap_, Tony removed the arc reactor from his chest.

"This will take three or four minutes, then the rest of you can walk out," Tony said, already feeling a tightening in his chest. "You'll have to hurry if you want to make it out before this places caves in."

"Tony," Steve said in a barely controlled voice, "put that back right now. We can figure _something_ else out, just put it back because we need your help to figure it out." He could see Tony's breathing begin to become incredibly labored, and he knew they were running out of time.

Clint and Bruce were not so calm. Both talking at once, all Tony was able to make out was something along the lines of "Tony, goddammit, put that—" "Tony, please put it back right now we need your help to get out of this and—" "you idiot put it back right _now—" _"listen to me, Tony—" and it went on but Tony couldn't hear much more of it because all he could hear was the blood pounding in his ears and couldn't think beyond the feeling of something _stabbing him in the chest_._  
_

Thor and Natasha were incredibly panicked, and instead of trying to talk Tony into putting his reactor back (he was to stubborn to do that anyway and by this point, Natasha reasoned, he probably didn't understand half of what they were saying), they were desperately trying to free themselves, because they knew once they were allowed to get out on their own, it would be too late.

Bruce could only stare in horror as Tony screamed through his teeth and clenched up his hands as the shrapnel slowly inched its way towards Tony's heart. Still unable to hulk-out, for who _knows_ what reason, he felt incredibly helpless.

And the five of them felt like throwing up when their cuffs opened on their own just after Tony stopped moving. They all leaped up and ran over to Tony. As Tony had talked to Bruce about this before, he picked up the arc without hesitation and put it back inside its place in Tony's chest. Slowly, it flickered back on. But Tony wasn't breathing. Clint slapped him in the face.

"You IDOIT," he screamed. "WAKE. UP."

"Stark, I'm going to kill you for this," Natasha said. And with that, she pushed Clint out of the way and tried CPR. It was a last-ditch effort, since he was probably already dead and she couldn't bring him back to life. After one last try, she started pounding desperately on his chest. Suddenly, a small shudder went through Tony, and Natasha was able to find an incredibly thin pulse and incredibly slow breathing. Apparently, he hadn't been dead long enough to be un-savable. Just as they felt the wave of relief wash through them, something else had to go wrong.

The cavern walls shook—it was about to collapse on them. Small rocks were falling from the ceiling, but pretty soon they would be buried by much _larger_ rocks threatening to fall on them soon. Steve swore, the first time any of them had heard him do it, very colorfully, and scooped up Tony fireman-style. "Thor, lead the way!"

Thor ran over to the now-open door, and found, to their dismay, a long set of stairs that seemed to go up forever. "We must hurry, my friends. I fear the stairs will collapse as well if we do not go now." He started quickly up the stairs, followed by Bruce, then Steve with Tony, then Clint and Natasha bringing up the rear just in case anyone decided to try and surprise them on the way up. The walls around them in the staircase were crumbling as well.

"Hurry!" shouted Steve. Suddenly, Natasha let out a half scream as a hand reached out from the side of the staircase and held a knife to her throat.

"No one move or she dies!" an unknown man shouted.

Natasha rolled her eyes. Grabbing the man's wrist, she flipped her legs over the man's head, strong grip keeping the knife from ripping into her throat, and slammed the man into the other side of the staircase hard enough to knock him out. This happened in less time than it took for Clint to descend four stairs to help her. "Keep going! The stairs are going out!"

And it was true—the stairs were falling away from the back, and Natasha was only just ahead of them. They were trying desperately to outrun the collapse, because they were getting higher and higher up and it was likely that the drop would kill them, or they'd just be trapped because the stairs would be gone and they couldn't climb back up.

Then it was over—Thor ran out onto flat ground and into the open, and the rest of them followed, and they made it up just before the stairs fell away completely. Breathing hard, Steve laid Tony down on the grass and looked around.

They were in the middle of an empty field in the middle of the night.

"Judging by the sky," Clint started, "it's probably about three in the morning, and I believe we are still in the United States."

"Steve, do you still have that SOS signal-thing that Fury gave you?" Fury had given Steve an emergency contact device that would deliver their exact coordinates and a signal for help directly to SHIELD.

"Yeah," he said, reaching into his sock to pull it out. Pressing the button, he sighed. "Now all we can do is wait."

They were all relatively scratched up, but Tony was still unconscious, and his breathing was slowly becoming more and more irregular. Steve could see that just because the arc reactor was back in him didn't mean there was no damage done. He could see a crack in the arc reactor that either came before Tony took it out and was caused by whatever forced them underground, or came from when he dropped it after he took it out. Possibly a combination of both. Either way, it obviously wasn't going to keep working for long. _Fury, you better hurry up_.

Thankfully, just as he thought this, Thor spotted a helicopter flying in towards them. Shouting as it came down, Steve picked up Tony and they all ran towards it.

"Tony needs medical attention right now," he said. Then Clint passed out. "So does Clint."

Fury nodded, and they lifted Tony and Clint onto stretchers and into the helicopter. After they were all loaded in, Natasha looked at Fury. "So where are we?"

"In the-middle-of-nowheresville, Iowa," Fury said. "The question is, how did you get here?"

"We'll debrief later," Bruce said in a slightly strained voice. "What I want to know is are they going to be okay?"

* * *

Clint's first thought when he woke up was that he was in a hospital bed. _Thank god, _he thought. Blinking his eyes blearily, he saw Natasha sitting across the room asleep in the chair. He shifted in the bed, causing her to wake up.

"You're an idiot," she said without preamble.

"What did I do now?"

"You got a concussion from a rock in that tunnel—apparently it hit you pretty hard."

"Oh yeah, that was when you were busy fighting off some random guy with a knife."

"So that's why I didn't see you get hit."

They sat in silence for a second. Then Clint's eyes widened.

"Stark—?"

Natasha smiled. "He's fine. We got him a new reactor, and he's sleeping away. He's right next to you, actually," she said, looking to his left. Sure enough, Tony was in the bed sleeping, with a glowing arc reactor in his breathing chest.

At that point, Steve, Thor, and Bruce walked in. "So, look who's up," said Steve. "You had us worried. One second I was carrying Tony and the next you just pass out!"

"Well, what can I say, I like creating drama," said Clint with a grin.

"Uh, actually, that's my job," said Tony. His eyes were half-closed and he had a really loopy-looking smile on his face. "How did I end up here this time?"

Everyone was silent until Thor spoke up. "Through a great act of bravery, you tried to save our lives and—"

"And nearly killed yourself!" added Clint.

"What did you expect me to do?" asked Tony.

And when they thought about it, no matter how angry it made them, they couldn't blame him. None of them wanted to have to kill a member of their team, and if the gun hadn't been designed to keep them from aiming at themselves, every single one of them would have shot themselves to let the rest of them live. With all of the loss they'd all experienced, they were determined to protect the ones they cared about. None of them really considered themselves selfless people, but the truly selfless ones never do. And they could yell at Tony all they wanted, but that wouldn't make him do anything different next time, especially when they all would have done the same.

After a long pause, Clint grinned and looked at Tony. "So, I have to ask. When we woke up in that cave thing, what on _earth_ were you dreaming about that involved eating rubber ducks?"

* * *

**And there you have it. I hope no one was incredibly out of character, and you could probably tell I like writing Tony and Clint more than the rest of them... they're my favorites :) :) :)**

**Anyways, please leave me a review to let me know what you thought, and maybe check out my other story that I'm working on, too!**

**Thanks for reading :)**

**-VB**


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